Cooking Light's Incredibly Easy Cocoa Fudge Cookies

Cooking Light Cocoa Fudge Cookies

I absolutely love to bake on the weekends. For me, it is my "me" time. I especially love when I find a recipe that is easy to make and tastes like it wasn't. This is one of those recipes.

When I woke up this morning, I knew I had to bake something, but since my hubs and I are doing the buddy-system weight-loss thing, I had to make sure that whatever I baked was semi- lightened up.  We have been doing a pretty good job so far counting calories, but I must create something sweet. Anything.  So, it might as well be a lower calorie, lower fat recipe that promises to taste like the real deal.

I scanned for chocolate treats on the Cooking Light website. One because we love chocolate. Two because chocolate is therapeutic. Three because Valentine's Day is around the corner and well, I promise that day will be full of tempting treats coming out of my kitchen. I can't help myself. Food is love d@m*it!

While there were several beautiful recipes to be found, I settled on this one, because it looked easy and pantry-friendly. Looks can be deceiving , but not in this case. This recipe is really easy to do in a pinch and if you are used to baking semi-regularly, then you should have most of the ingredients on hand. This is close to being a 30- minute recipe.

Here is how it went down:

Melt butter.  Remove from heat and add cocoa. This is glorious. 

Next, add sugars to the cocoa mixture. Will look coarse.

Add yogurt and vanilla extract to the mix. 

Then, stir in the flour mixture. 

This is how the battered looked after I was done. Ugly, but tastes so good!

Drop the batter into tablespoon balls on lightly greased pan. Then, bake in a preheated 350F oven for 7-10 minutes.

Allow cookies to cool on pan until firm (2-3 minutes).

Then, allow cookies to completely cool on rack. Recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies. 

I made one substitution. I used vanilla-flavored low fat yogurt instead of the plain stuff. I never buy the plain stuff, but I should for instances like these. However, I lucked out, because vanilla extract was an ingredient called for in this recipe, so I felt justified.  To make up for the yogurt, I reduced the extract to half a teaspoon.

These cookies were super-fudgy tasting. They also had a cake-cookie texture. My husband agreed and said he could eat the whole batch, so I put them out of sight in the pantry. They are now property of the boys and girls in the Little household. If we do well on our calories for today, I will sneak one out for me and him. To the victors...

Next time I bake these babies up, I am going to dip half of them in dark chocolate. I think that would dress them up nicely. A little sprinkle of flour de sel may look spiffy, too. These are definitely the little black dress of cookies.

Give them a try and tell me what you think. Time for me to go run, so I can earn my cookie!

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